Course objectives

After successfully completing the course, students know and understand the most important theories about religion and processes of religious change in the modern world. Concretely, this entails
(1) that students can reflect on the aims and perspective of the sociology of religion as an academic discipline;
(2) that students can explain the main points of a number of theories about religion by classic and contemporary sociologists of religion:
(3) that students can adopt a well-argued position in the debate about religious change in the (late) modern world – defending, for instance, the secularisation thesis or the transformation thesis, and being able to explicate in detail what these processes of change entail;
(4) that students can explain how the late modern religious field is structured, i.e. where we can find religion today within and outside institutions, and which types of religiosity and religious belonging characterise late modern religion; and
(5) that students can critically test various sociological theories against empirical reality.

Assessment method

Written mid-term take-home exam: 30%.
Written end-term take-home exam: 70%.
To pass the course, students must score a sufficient mark (6,0) as the weighted average of the two tests.

Resit: A re-exam is available for both test units. In either case, students are given a chance to hand in a new version of the take-home exam two weeks after the original deadline.

Blackboard

The course makes use of Blackboard. All communication will take place via Blackboard, additional information about the course will be available via Blackboard, and assignments must be handed in via Blackboard.

Reading list

Students are required to buy Alan Aldridge (2013), Religion in the Contemporary World: A Sociological Introduction, Third edition, Cambridge & Malden, MA: Polity Press.
A reader for the course will be available from the Copy & Print Shop in the Lipsius building. In August, you can order it from “http://www.readeronline.leidenuniv.nl/”